Alan's waiting on the runway and as Scott brings TB1 in for a landing, seeing him at a distance, he's reminded of just how small his youngest brother is.

There's been a lot to step up to, lately, a lot to grow into, and Alan's risen to meet everything that's been thrown at him. He'd almost seemed to come into adulthood by conscious choice, by necessity. Because they were down one member, and someone needed to fill the role. Because his brothers needed an adult, and not a child. Because the only way to reach John was to try and approach him on equal terms.

But as Thunderbird One touches down on the tarmac and her engines begin to spin down, Scott's still firmly aware of the reality. Alan's only nineteen. A brilliant, competent, highly trained and highly skilled nineteen, but nineteen all the same. And he's been through a lot.

"You got Grandma?" Scott asks as he climbs out of the pilot's seat and turns to see how Virgil and their grandmother are doing, both strapped into jump seats in the back of One's sparse interior. It's hard enough to get into TB1, getting out of it can be challenging in a whole other way. And spry as she is, his grandmother's still eighty-five. "I can—"

"Grandma's got Grandma," his grandmother answers shortly, though Scott can see her hands tremoring slightly as she fumbles with her chest strap. Virgil's still not quite unbuckled his own harness yet. Still, she waves a hand towards the open hatch of the forward cockpit. "Go, Scott. We're right behind you."

"Yeah, I got Grandma," Virgil answers, heaving himself out of his seat with a weary groan and a sigh and proceeding to help his grandmother. "I think Grandma's probably gonna have to get me right back."

"You know it, kiddo."

So they've got each other covered. So Scott doesn't worry about Virgil and Grandma any further, as he clambers down from the cockpit and lets his boots hit the tarmac.

It's dark in this part of the world; it had gotten darker as they'd crossed the globe, blazing north and westward into the sunset. Scott doesn't know the exact time, but equally he knows it doesn't really matter. Alan's still standing well back, clear of TB1's landing radius, and Scott can see the wind teasing at his pale blond hair, can see the way he's got his arms folded tight around his chest. He's still in uniform, they all are, so it's not like he can really be cold, but there's an undeniable chill in the air, and if Scott manages to feel it, then Alan probably does too.

Scott's quick to cover the distance to his baby brother, and when Alan finally looks up, Scott can see he's already hit his breaking point, but gone and forced his way past it, just waiting for an excuse to crumble. Before the youngest can say anything, Scott catches hold of him a little roughly, pulls him into a tight, insistent hug. Initially Alan seems a little too numb to return it in kind, but eventually Scott feels a squeeze around his torso and the breath shudders out of his brother. Something gives way, some of the rigidity seems to leave him and so Scott eases off, but keeps his hands on Alan's shoulders as he draws back to get a proper look at the kid.

"You're okay, Alan. You got them both here, and—and whatever else happens, that was you. You did good. Okay, Allie? You brought them both back and that counts for everything." Whether or not they're going to bring both Dad and John home is a different question. Whether or not this is the last place John will ever be—but that doesn't matter. In the moment, here and now, this is what Alan needs to hear.

There's a quick, tight nod, and Alan's eyes are glassy, a little damp with tears. But he swallows and straightens up and takes a deep breath, and proves Scott wrong about his breaking point. His voice is steadier than it has any right to be when he answers, "Yeah. Dad…Dad's with him. With John. I only got to see him once before they took him back, and he looked awful but…but one of his doctors said, he's not as bad as he seems. It's just a lot, all at once, but she said they think he'll pull through. She says he's tougher than he looks."

It's a piece of good news Scott wasn't expecting, but he's still cautious in taking it at face value, hopes that some well meaning medic wasn't just placating his little brother. "Good. That's good, Alan. Yeah, John's…he'll be okay. He's gotta be, I've still gotta get my hands on him. And…and Dad?"

Some of the tension creeps back into his little brother, his spine stiffens, his hands flex slightly, twitching back into fists. "He's fine. I mean, he's not hurt, maybe a bit shook up about John and…a-and everything, but—"

Scott's pretty sure he can put it down to just the shock of everything he's gone through, but he still has a hard time believing just how disconnected Alan seems, from the fact that their father is alive. That their father is here. "What happened? What…all of this, Alan, what the hell was all this about? Has he…did he say? Did he tell you?"

There's something sort of funny in the way Alan's expression twists up a bit, then, but Scott doesn't know how to read into it, nor does he quite know what to make of the way Alan shakes his head. "No," he answers, but he's looking past Scott now—towards Virgil and Grandma, Scott assumes—"No, he…he didn't tell me. You'd better ask him yourself. Go, Scott, go on. I'm …I'll help Virg and Grandma. We'll be right behind you."

Right behind him. He's heard it twice now. It's Scott's job to leave people behind. It's his job to go first, to strike out ahead. He's not sure if something's been holding him back before now, if he's been waiting for permission. He's not sure why Alan, of all people, is the one to give it to him.

But he clasps his brother's shoulder for one more brief moment, and then, with nothing to hold him back, Scott runs for the brightly lit hospital doors.

He's lucky that they're expecting him. Lucky that they remember him from last time, lucky that IR blue is distinctive and easy to identify, and that this is the second instance of it they've seen this evening. Lucky that he's not stopped from bursting into the Emergency Room, but instead directed further inward still. He manages not to kick open the double doors leading onward into the hospital, and even succeeds in slowing down to a brisk trot, as he picks up a pert young blonde woman as an escort. He doesn't place her immediately, but—

"Dyson," he says, catching sight of the name tape across her labcoat. Abruptly he remembers her from last time, which surprises him enough to actually stop him in his tracks, as the first pair double doors swing shut behind them. "Dr. Dyson, you were—"

"Yes, I was," she answers, a little bit breathless as he allows her to catch up. "From last time. I spoke to your brother—to—to the younger one, the little—"

"Alan," Scott supplies, and gestures for her to lead the way and follows when she does. "Yeah, he mentioned. What's my—what's John's status?"

"Critical, but improving. He was in bad shape when he first came through, but we've had an hour to work on him since then. They're prepping him for surgery now. He's got…by our scans, it looks like a pacemaker, but the internal hardware's all wrong. And in any case the leads were badly implanted, they've scarred the inside of his heart. Might be the beginnings of an infection, they'll take cultures from the site and they've already started on his blood work."

That sounds bad. That sounds bad enough that Scott catches her elbow, startled. "Surgery?"

"Just to pull the cardiac implant out, it's doing more harm than good. Next of kin didn't indicate that John's ever suffered from a heart condition, so—"

Next of kin. Scott's almost dizzy with the realization that next of kin means their father, and he swallows as he realizes that his father's also probably years out of date regarding what's current with John, medically. "Right. Yeah, no, he doesn't. Not that I know of, I mean. I don't know why he'd have a pacemaker, that's—I don't know about that. You're removing it?"

Dr. Dyson nods and Scott follows her through another door, and into a long corridor. "They've brought in a cardiac specialist from Zurich, they're just processing his security clearance before they can permit him to operate."

There's a twitch of a muscle in Scott's jaw as his teeth clench, and he has to stop himself from making a remark about security clearances and the last time John was here. Dr. Dyson might notice, because she clears her throat and makes it for him, awkward and apologetic, "—I know there was an…an incident. Last time. It won't happen again."

"…Thank you." It's the only response he can think of that doesn't come across as haughty or condescending. He changes the subject before he says something he'll regret. "Am I gonna be able to see him? I just…if you're putting him under, then I…if I could, just…before he—"

"I'll see what I can do." She stops at the junction of another corridor, and her hand falls to his arm and he turns as she points down the hallway past him. "The waiting room's through there."

And he's been here before. He's been in this place, in this exact hallway, headed for this exact waiting room. The memory's suddenly clear as the daylight had been, then, not even all that long ago. It's dark outside now, and the light is different, all weird and fluorescent; no natural sunlight through the narrow windows that run along the top of the corridor.

And there was no one for him to turn to, then.

There's someone there for him, now.